LITMIR.BIZ

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When she simply stared at him, he quirked a brow. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

      Isobel Carmichael stared at the man she’d told herself she could manage. She’d told herself she could handle being close to him again without the protective barrier of any professional façade between them, too—that the urgency of her mission would override her continuing reaction to him, the reaction she fought tooth and nail to keep hidden.

      Instead, just the sight of him had seized her senses in an iron grip. Just the sound of his deep, rumbling voice—so deep it resonated with something inside her—had sent her wits careening.

      As for seeing that dark brow of his quirk upward while his intense gaze remained locked with hers...she hadn’t brought a fan.

      Disillusionment stared her in the face, but she mentally set her teeth and refused to recognize it. Failure wasn’t an option, and she’d already stormed her way to his door and into his presence.

      His still-overwhelming presence.

      Hair nearly as black as her own fell in ruffled locks about his head. His face would make Lucifer weep, with a broad forehead, straight black brows, long cheeks below chiseled cheekbones, and an aggressively squared chin. The impact was only heightened by the neatly trimmed mustache and beard he’d recently taken to sporting. As for his body...even when stationary, his long-limbed frame held a masculine power that was evident to anyone with eyes. Broad shoulders and long, strong legs combined with an innate elegance that showed in the ease with which he wore his clothes, in the grace with which he moved. Well-set eyes that saw too much remained trained on her face, while she knew all too well how positively sinful his lips truly were.

      She shoved her rioting senses deep, dragged in a breath, and succinctly stated, “I need you to take me to Freetown.”

      He blinked—which struck her as odd. He was rarely surprised—or, at least, not so surprised that he showed it.

      “Freetown?”

      He’d stiffened, too—she was sure of it. “Yes.” She frowned. “It’s the capital of the West Africa Colony.” She’d been sure he would know; indeed, she’d assumed he’d visited the place several times.

      She stepped into the office. Without shifting her gaze from his, she shut the door on his agitated secretary and the interested denizens of the outer office and walked forward.

      He dropped the letter he’d been holding onto his blotter. “Why there?”

      As if they were two dangerous animals both of whom knew better than to take their eyes from the other, he, too, kept his gaze locked with hers.

      Halting, she faced him with the reassuring width of the desk between them. She could have sat in one of the straight-backed chairs angled to the desk, but if she needed to rail at him, she preferred to be upright; she railed better on her feet.

      Of course, while she remained standing, he would stand, too, but with the desk separating them, he didn’t have too much of a height advantage.

      She still had to tip up her head to continue to meet his eyes—the color of storm-tossed seas and tempest-wracked Aberdeen skies.

      And so piercingly intense. When they interacted professionally, he usually kept that intensity screened.

      Yet this wasn’t a professional visit; her entrance had been designed to make that plain, and Royd Frobisher was adept at reading her signs.

      Her mouth had gone dry. Luckily, she had her speech prepared. “We received news yesterday that my cousin—second cousin or so—Katherine Fortescue has gone missing in Freetown. She was acting as governess to an English family, the Sherbrooks. It seems Katherine vanished while on an errand to the post office some months ago, and Mrs. Sherbrook finally saw her way to writing to inform the family.”

      Still holding his gaze, she lifted her chin a fraction higher. “As you might imagine, Iona is greatly perturbed.” Iona Carmody was her maternal grandmother and the undisputed matriarch of the Carmody clan. “She wasn’t happy when, after Katherine’s mother died, we didn’t hear in time to go down and convince Katherine to come to us. Instead, Katherine got some bee in her bonnet about making her own way and so took the post as governess. She’d gone by the time I reached Stonehaven.”

      Stonehaven was twelve miles south of Aberdeen; Royd would know of it. She plowed on, “So now, obviously, I need to go to Freetown, find Katherine, and bring her home.”

      Royd held Isobel’s dark gaze. Although he saw nothing “obvious” about her suggestion, he knew enough of the workings of the matriarchal Carmodys to follow her unwritten script. She viewed her being too late to catch and draw her cousin into the safety of the clan as a failure on her part. And as Iona was now “perturbed,” Isobel saw it as her duty to put matters right.

      She and Iona were close. Very close. As close as only two women who were exceedingly alike could be. Many had commented that Isobel had fallen at the very base of Iona’s tree.

      He therefore understood why Isobel believed it was up to her to find Katherine and bring her home. That didn’t mean Isobel had to go to Freetown.

      Especially as there was an excellent chance that Katherine Fortescue was among the captives he was about to be dispatched to rescue.

      “As it happens, I’ll be heading for Freetown shortly.” He didn’t glance at Wolverstone’s summons; one hint, and Isobel was perfectly capable of pouncing on the missive and reading it herself. “I promise I’ll hunt down your Katherine and bring her safely home.”

      Isobel’s gaze grew unfocused. She weighed the offer, then—determinedly and defiantly—shook her head.

      “No.” Her jaw set, and she refocused on his face. “I have to go myself.” She hesitated, then grudgingly confided, “Iona needs me to go.”

      Eight years had passed since they’d spoken about anything other than business. After the failure of their handfasting, she’d avoided him like the plague, until the dual pressures of him needing to work with the Carmichael Shipyards to implement the innovations he desperately wanted incorporated into the Frobisher fleet and the economic downturn following the end of the wars leaving her and her father needing Frobisher Shipping Company work to keep the shipyards afloat had forced them face-to-face again.

      Face-to-face across a desk with engineering plans and design sheets littering the surface.

      The predictable fact was that they worked exceptionally well together. They were natural complements in many ways.

      He was an inventor—he sailed so much in such varying conditions, he was constantly noting ways in which vessels could be improved for both safety and speed.

      She was a brilliant designer. She could take his raw ideas and give them structure.

      He was an experienced engineer. He would take her designs and work out how to construct them.

      Against all the odds, she managed the shipyards and was all but revered by the workforce. The men had seen her grow from a slip of a girl-child running wild over the docks and the yards. They considered her one of their own; her success was their success, and they worked for her as they would for no other.

      Using his engineering drawings, she would order the workflow and assemble the required components, he would call in whichever ship he wanted modified, and magic would happen.

      Working in tandem, he and she were steadily improving the performance of the Frobisher fleet, and for any shipping company, that meant long-term survival. In turn, her family’s shipyards were fast gaining a reputation for unparalleled production at the cutting edge of shipbuilding.

      Strained though their interactions remained, professionally speaking, they were a smoothly efficient and highly successful team.

      Yet through all their meetings in offices or elsewhere over recent years, she’d kept him at a frigidly rigid distance. She’d never given him an opportunity to broach the subject of what the hell had happened eight years

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